


Threads

by theroguesgambit



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Love Spell, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, dubcon themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-28 21:18:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3870091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroguesgambit/pseuds/theroguesgambit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is in love with Derek. He's not <em>supposed</em> to be.</p><p>Only Stiles refuses to believe that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The bloodied remnants of the fae woman lay scattered across the ground. Derek is barely standing, leaning heavily on his left leg with no idea how much of the blood soaking his shirt, jeans, and hair is his own.

(A _lot_ of it is his own. The black spots in his vision definitely didn’t show up to help celebrate his victory.)

Sneakered feet pound toward the clearing, and tension seeps out of Derek at the sound.

Stiles is coming.

It shouldn’t be as much of a comfort as it is: the fragile human barreling through the trees toward him. If anything, it _should_ be because with Stiles generally comes Scott (at least, moreso these days), and Scott is powerful enough to watch Derek’s back in a crisis. ...But there’s not really any point of Derek lying inside his own head, and it’s definitely the image of Stiles – driving him to safety, striking him into wakefulness, holding him up while he lay, helpless and paralyzed, in a pool for two hours – that has Derek relaxing, slumping to his knees in the dirt.

Safety is coming.

She’s on him a second later.

Deceptively soft hands are gripping his throat, dragging him up until he’s eye-level with a frail-looking waif of a woman: dainty bones and soft, ice-colored curls against night-blue skin. Lips full and eyes wide and _fierce_ with a thousand years’ of bottled fury.

She is in every way the image of the woman Derek had just killed, and he resists the urge to glance reflexively to the bloodied corpse, to make sure it’s still there.

This is the way of the fae. She could be the woman’s mother or daughter, sister or lover. Their appearances shift with their will and their mood and the tide.

And if she looks right now like the woman Derek had just killed, they must have meant something to each other. Derek isn’t optimistic about his chances of winning a second round.

“She was killing,” he says, because there’s no strength to fight left in him. He doesn’t expect it to make a difference, and it doesn’t. The creature’s wild eyes scan over him, unforgiving.

“She was _mine_.”

Stiles is close, feet crunching across a dense pile of leaves beyond the clearing. Derek remembers the spot, where the wind had gathered them into a hollow. He’s seconds away, and he sounds horribly alone. Derek tenses, a warning shout rising and catching in his throat.

The creature tilts her head thoughtfully, eyes going distant as though she’s tracing the progression of sound from the forest straight to Derek’s chest.

“Well,” she breathes. “Equal and fair in all things, I suppose. Brave hero, stopping the wicked fae. I suppose you’ve earned a reward.”

He was expecting a quick tear of nails to his throat, and he knows right away that would be preferable. It’s obvious from the curl of the fae’s grin, the hand at his neck, the blood still dripping wet from his hair down his temple: a quick death would probably the best thing for him.

Stiles’ feet skid to a stop, and the hand is gone.

Derek’s knees vibrate with the impact of hitting the dirt, and he’s already scrambling back upward as his ruined body screams out protest. Blood rushes in his ears, down his chest in fresh rivulets, and the spots are making a second appearance as he finally catches sight of him.

Standing, still standing. Not dead for having come out here when Derek called him. (Why couldn’t he, just for once, have refused to play the hero? Waited for backup, for Scott, the way Derek had _told_ him to?)

He’s standing, rigid and tensed, about twenty feet from Derek. A baseball bat clutched to his chest like a crucifix, his eyes caught on the fae and she shifts around him, eyes stringing a path between Stiles and Derek as though tracking invisible threads connecting them. The gleam of her grin sharp enough to snap them, if she chooses.

“It was me.” The words come out a grit of expelled air and anger, and Stiles’ eyes snap from the fae to Derek, expression sick, face pale.

“Derek… what—”

“It was _me_ ,” he says again, moving a shuffling step forward. “Take out your retribution on me.”

“You mean _reward_ , don’t you?” She looks all too pleased by his misery. Derek wonders, too late, if he should have played it up as though he didn’t care about Stiles one way or the other. Wonders if it would have made a difference at all if he had.

She turns now to Stiles. Reaches out, even as he flinches, to trace a thoughtful finger up his throat to lift his chin.

“The wolf killed a very _dangerous_ fae. Don’t you think he deserves a prize?”

Stiles lets out a faint, nervous sound, looking for all the world like he wants to jerk away from her finger on his chin, but doesn’t want to spur her to lash out with any sudden movement. Instead he pastes a smile on, every bit as bright and fake as the fae’s.

It’s terrifying and beautiful, and Derek’s heart catches at the sight of it: this human boy, with bat in hand, smirking back at the ancient magical being as though they’re equals. But then, Stiles has always stood toe to toe against every challenge this life had thrown at him.

The fae’s smile widens. Stiles lifts his chin, shrugs.

“Well, killing me would definitely do that. I drive the guy crazy, you know? If you really want to do him a favor, offing me’s probably a good bet.”

Derek’s breath catches at the bluff, well delivered without a hint of irony. The fae’s finger trails down Stiles’ chin (over the pale, thin, _fragile_ skin of his neck) to curl against his chest. She hums, eyes drifting shut, hand leaving Stiles and sliding out, tracing a significant line over the open air.

“Did you know that he loves you?”

Stiles’ lips twist into a scoff, eyes fluttering back across the clearing, and Derek feels something wrench deep inside him. The words _exposing_ him, shredding him open more than when the fae’s claws had torn into him. He wants to _run_.

“That’s not… Derek?”

“Poor lonely, broken wolf. Wounded again and again by love. So he tries to close off his heart, tries to live his life all caged up and empty and safe. But his foolish heart just can’t listen to sense, can it? Something always worms its way back in.”

He can’t look away from Stiles’ face, the way it’s bleeding from amusement to shock.

“ _Derek_ ,” he says again, more urgently now, a plea for an explanation, a denial, and…

He’s going to _die_. Stiles is going to die for no reason except that Derek had been foolish enough to want him and too weak to protect him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice breaking over the words. Sorry he couldn’t control his feelings. Sorry for attaching himself to this boy who barely likes him, would barely call him a friend.

“ _Holy shit_ ,” Stiles is breathing, gaping back at him, expression twisting up, sick. _Disgusted._ Derek flinches. Stiles turns back to the fae.

“No, listen, don’t do this, ok? Whatever you’re gonna do, please don’t do this to—“

Her finger touches Stiles’ lips and he seizes up, heart pounding out a too-fast tattoo through the clearing. Derek forces himself forward again, makes it one step before his leg collapses. He hits the dirt with a whine.

“Now listen to me, human boy. The brave werewolf killed a wicked fae, and has earned a reward.”

“I will kill you,” Derek promises, the words spitting out through bloodied teeth. There’s no way to make it there fast enough, no way to stop whatever she has planned, but… “Touch him and I swear to god I will—“

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll want to,” she says, light, still smiling. “I’m only giving you what you want anyway.”

Stiles _whimpers_ at that, his mouth still sealed shut, body tensed like it’s fighting to run against the fae’s invisible hold. Derek swallows, thick.

“I don’t want him dead.”

The wounds are taking too long healing. It feels like an Alpha’s claws. Worse. Derek’s leg is straight up _refusing_ to hold him now. He shoulders himself forward anyway.

There are fifteen endless feet between them.

“Well, I don’t know if that’s entirely true,” she’s saying, mildly. “It’s easier that way, is it not? If the ones you care about are gone? If you don’t have to worry about choices or rejection or whether to trust.” Her hand is back on Stiles, gripping his chin between two sharp-nailed fingers, dragging his gaze forcibly over to Derek again. “But don’t worry, I’m not quite _that_ generous.” And then she leans in, breathes a hot line up Stiles’ neck.

“You’re in love with this wolf,” she says, lips curling against Stiles’ ear. One deceptively dainty hand reaches out to pluck at that invisible strand over his heart.

Stiles shudders, full-bodied, at the slightest twitch of her finger. His eyes startle, still locked on Derek’s. Wide, scared and vulnerable in a way that makes Derek physically _ache_ to move forward, to push between Stiles and the creature hurting him, use his own body to shield against any and all attacks.

He gets so lost in the feeling that the creature’s words hardly register. They don’t make sense, they’re not—

Her fingers twitch again, and this time both men shudder at the tug.

“You’ve always wanted him, since that first day you saw him. Over time those feelings have grown though, haven’t they? From dirty fantasies you were half ashamed of having to something that blossoms like an ache in your heart at the want for him.”

Stiles’ heart is pounding out frantically. He lets out a faint, wild sound through white-pressed lips. His eyes are a wreck of so many emotions Derek can’t begin to make sense of them… except for the pain. There’s so much _pain_ there Derek can’t even breathe.

“You’ve kept the feelings inside though, kept them secret.”

There’s another tug at Derek’s chest, a jerk that has him flinching reflexively forward. It hits him suddenly, sickly, what’s she’s doing.

She’s _crafting a new thread between them_.

“ _No_.” It comes from Stiles, a burst of broken sound. His chest heaves under the creature’s hand, gaze tearing away from Derek to stare bravely into her fathomless eyes. “Don’t do this to us.”

“You love him,” she says again, patiently, like it’s a lesson she’s drilling into him. Stiles shudders, jaw going tight. “You _remember_ that feeling, always vibrating beneath the surface, all tangled up in fear and then trust and friendship.” She plucks the fresh thread idly, and it vibrates through Derek with an echo of his own longing.

“You don’t have to keep it a secret any longer though. You can go to him, be with him.”

A snarl tears from Derek’s throat. Stiles’ desperate eyes startle back to him. A tear rolls free, and the creature leans up to lick it away with a pleased sound. Her attention shifts languidly back to Derek.

“Enjoy your reward, wolf.”

The next breeze carries her off in a rustle of shifting branches.

Leaving Stiles and Derek staring at each other across the bloody clearing.


	2. Chapter 2

“You’re not gonna believe anything I say.”

They’re making their way back to Stiles’ jeep. Derek had tried, at first, to move on his own. Flinching from Stiles’ too gentle touch, averting his gaze from those soft brown eyes, too full of feeling. He’d barely made it two steps before stumbling straight into a tree, vision going black, Stiles’ surprised shout muffled and distant in his ears.

He’d agreed to lean on Stiles after that, still not looking at him, not focusing on his scent or the nervous flutter of his heart or the way Stiles would sigh every dozen steps like he was fighting for words and coming up blank. Until now.

Derek turns his face away, focuses on keeping his legs under him.

“She was messing with you though, Derek.”

There’s a tang of blood in his throat.

“So she didn’t make you…” He can’t even say the words.

“She didn’t make me love you,” Stiles confirms.

The jeep’s in sight, in the distance. The words ache in a way Derek convinces himself is relief.

Until Stiles’ thumb smoothes down his side and he adds, softly, “I loved you before that. I have for a long time.”

He wrenches out of Stiles’ grip. Nearly hits the ground, hears Stiles yelp in surprise, annoyance. But he can’t… he _can’t_ right now.

He can stand on his own feet, if only barely. He focuses on the movements of his legs, doesn’t lift his eyes to Stiles once. Doesn’t let himself look throughout the drive home either, flinches over Stiles’ hitched breaths: barely caught sobs over fabricated feelings. Squeezes his eyes shut, trying to block out the few aborted attempts of “I mean it,” and “it’s real, ok, she didn’t…” and the three increasingly frustrated “ _I love you_ s.”

As though Stiles hadn’t been there in that clearing, hadn’t heard everything that Derek had. Hadn’t felt the fae crafting her spell as she whispered lies in Stiles’ ear, forcing him to believe them.

When they reach the loft, Stiles makes a movement like he wants to follow Derek out of the car. It makes him finally look up, meet Stiles’ eyes. He ignores the expression there, the one that seems to be pleading him for an understanding he can’t provide. Ignores the way Stiles’ whole body seems to be calling to him, like a pathway that had been shut before finally standing open.

He could have Stiles. He could have him, and Stiles would _want_ it.

He shudders, breaking the gaze too fast.

“We’ll fix this,” he says, and pushes away from the car.

Ignores the sound of Stiles' palm slamming into the dash. Ignores the frustrated mutter of “There’s nothing to fix.”

.-

There are a few things that Stiles just _knows_ , all right?

He knows that his dad is the most important thing in his life. He knows that Scott’s his brother, blood binding them or no. He knows Lydia’s the most perfect woman in existence, and he’ll probably always be a little bit ruled by her.

And he knows he is so completely in love with Derek Hale he can’t stand it.

He _knows_ that, ok? He knew that yesterday. He knew it last week, when he’d been late to a pack meeting and Derek had hidden away two slices of pizza for him. He knew it last month when he and Derek had ended up in a two hour bickering match that had started with _Star Wars_ and bled over into Marvel, and Stiles had wanted to kiss his stupid, beautiful, terribly opinionated face all over.

He’d known it back in Mexico, when Derek had lain there dying, and everything inside Stiles had ached to kneel down next to him, clutch his hand, _shake_ him, kiss him, just keep him alive, keep him there with Stiles, keep him from disappearing.

He’d never thought for a second Derek might love him back. And now he _does_ , and Stiles can’t do a damn thing about it, because that goddamned fae has him convinced it’s all a lie.

 _Unless it is_ tries to sneak through his mind unbidden, and he silences the thought with a twist of agitated motion, his pillow pressing over his head.

No way in hell. He is _not_ about to believe his memories of the last few years are all lies. He knows who he is. He knows what he feels.

The pillow’s sailing across the room as he sits up, scrambles for his phone. It’s nearly midnight but after three rings the phone connects with a patient sounding “hello?”

“Deaton hey. Ok, so: love spells, real or fake?”

.-

There’s no way to avoid a pack meeting. It’s not like the presence of the (original) fae had been a secret, and Derek’s mass text of “took care of it” apparently wasn’t deemed an adequate explanation by the rest of the group.

Stiles is sitting on the tall wooden stool by the kitchen island. His backpack is perched against his leg, even though it’s a Saturday and none of the other teens have theirs. The zipper jingles once in a while, when his leg bounces restlessly.

Derek keeps to his feet, pacing along the other side of the wide room, as far as he can get from Stiles without pressing straight into the wall or fleeing entirely. There’s a thread between them, new and false, and he feels it pulling at him. Feels Stiles’ eyes drawing him in, making him pause, lose track of his thoughts whenever he’s careless enough to let himself look that way.

And he can’t… he can’t give in for a second to this. It wouldn’t be fair.

Stiles hasn’t slept, if the rings under his eyes are any indication. He looks as worn down as Derek feels, and his gaze is too soft still, the way it had been all last night.

“So it’s dead,” Kira confirms from where she’s curled into Scott’s side on the couch. “Does that mean it’s over?”

She’s looking at Derek like she knows something else is going on, like she can read it in the set of his shoulders, or the way he can’t seem to keep still.

He doesn’t believe that the second fae will be back. She’d had her revenge, has probably forgotten the incident already, in the mercurial way of her kind. He should tell the group about what she’d done to Stiles, though. He’ll need their help to figure out how to fix it. But that would mean admitting his own feelings, and the words catch in his throat.

“It’s over,” Stiles confirms when Derek falters. “Everything’s back to normal.”

Derek looks away, and hates the ache in his heart that wishes that were true.

.-

There are papers in Stiles’ bag, the results of a night’s worth of research into magic: its limits, its inner workings. Into the fae and their reputation as petty tricksters. Key phrases bolded and highlighted in jabs of red, notes scrawled in increasingly messy, increasingly snarky hand in the margins. Stiles hadn’t slept, had been too jittery in his skin to even try.

Too caught up in the idea of research, of proving himself right, of proving _Derek_ wrong… and that’s number 15, by the way, on his bullet point list of reasons why this isn’t a love spell: he doesn’t feel the sudden urge to do whatever Derek says, or change himself for Derek, or put the guy up on some perfect pedestal in the vapid way such magic inspires.

With every point he’d researched last night, he’d become more convinced that he was right about this. That the fae had been messing with Derek, taking enjoyment in the idea of twisting him all up in self-doubt without actually _doing_ a damn thing.

He knows he’s right. He knows what he feels, ok? He just needs Derek to fucking _get_ it because… because Derek loves him back. Which he hasn’t even been able to seriously process, honestly.

Except that he kept finding himself grinning randomly halfway through research, lost himself a few times to the idea of Derek’s mouth on his.

Which is normal, ok? A normal “realizing a guy you’re in love with loves you back” kind of reaction. It does _not_ mean he’s under the goofy effects of a mind-warping love spell.

He waits until the others are gone – until Derek’s digging his fingers into his well-scored wooden table, telling Stiles in no uncertain terms to leave – before he hops off his stool, unzips the backpack, and shoves the stack of papers in front of him.

Derek’s eyes keep sliding off them though, while Stiles talks, not seeming to take any of the information in. It’s starting to seriously piss Stiles off.

“ _Look_ , ok?” he snaps, jabbing his finger at another page. “I’m not some vapid, drugged up, dewy eyed damsel. I’m not in physical pain when I’m away from you. This isn’t some kind of over the top lust thing.” Which is as close as you can actually _get_ to a love spell, if any of the information Stiles dug up can be believed. “This is just me, being in l—” he chokes off. 

His eyes are damp with frustration, his voice thick when he tries again.

“Derek… she did this because she _knew_ it would be the thing to break you. Not trusting people’s motivations, not knowing if their feelings are real. Not letting yourself _have_ me, have something that might make you happy, because you think you’re doing something wrong if you touch me. _Fuck_ , Derek. You realized she destroyed any potential for us just by whispering a few things that were _already true_?”

“And you realize you’re the last person who’s qualified to judge if _anything_ you’re saying is true?”

It’s the first time Derek has spoken since he’d brought out the papers, and his voice is too cold, biting at Stiles with the force of all that repressed emotion.

Stiles grits his teeth.

“I just _told_ you—“

“You told me it’s not a love spell. I believe you.” The words come out dull, but it’s enough to knock the tension right out of Stiles. To have him moving forward, chest faint and tight and fluttery because maybe this is it, maybe Derek’s finally fucking _heard_ him. Maybe they can actually have this.

A hand pressed to his chest stops him. Derek refuses to meet his eyes.

“She didn’t hypnotize you into loving me, Stiles. She altered your memories so you think you should.”

He pulls back then, flinches when Stiles reaches out to catch his hand, breathing “Derek…”

“I’m sorry,” Derek says, soft. “Just go.”

Stiles searches his face, lets out a slow breath, and does.

.-

“So Derek’s convinced that I’ve been fucking _incepted_ into loving him. Because obviously, right? Because if there’s a chance to play the martyr, he just _has_ to dive on it.”

The ceiling, pale and flat with a funny brown splotch toward one corner, does very little to sympathize with Stiles’ plight. When he slides his gaze away, he finds his best friend not doing much better.

“Uh… dude.”

“No, no ‘uh, dudeing’ me right now, ok? That doesn’t sound like a supportive ‘uh dude.’”

“But _dude_ ,” Scott says, more urgently. He’s sitting on his computer chair, elbows on his knees, leaning forward the way he has been since Stiles had burst into the room, collapsed on his bed, and started his story. “You _don’t_ like Derek.”

It’s a like a slap, because _no,_ Scott doesn’t side with Derek. Scott always sides with Stiles, it’s best friend code. And friends definitely don’t go around invalidating their friend's emotionally crippling romantic confessions about emotionally crippled, broody werewolves.

“Oh my god,” Stiles grits, flailing for a pillow to have something to punch at. Or hug, maybe. “I _do_ , ok? Why is everyone saying that?”

“Stiles, you’ve never said _anything_ about being into Derek.”

Which… ok, doesn’t exactly _help_ Stiles’ argument, but…

“When was I supposed to say anything, Scott? When you two hated each other? Or when we were all almost being killed? Or when he left town, possibly forever, or when he came back and I was possessed? Or when he was like five years old randomly, or when he left town _again_ or…” He trails off, contemplates the pillow. Ends up going for the hug.

Scott’s staring at him with something like sympathy, something like complete and total disbelief.

“I’ve said he’s hot,” Stiles points out. He's definitely done that much.

Scott makes a tight, uncomfortable sound.

“You’ve said he’s got ‘stupid, attractive muscles’ and how ‘not fair’ his stubble is.” Stiles waves a hand, because _exactly_. But Scott just shrugs, seeming unconvinced. “I figured you were kind of more jealous than turned on by that. I mean, you never really came across like you wanted all up on that or anything.”

Which… shit. Had been more or less _purposeful._ Because it had been embarrassing, ok? It had been embarrassing, and Scott wouldn’t _get_ it, and he’d probably act differently around Derek if he knew, and Stiles would probably just about die if Derek found out… but all of this definitely doesn't help Stiles’ case right now. He hadn't told anyone how he felt. And it’s not like he kept secret diaries with entries about how fucking gorgeous Derek’s eyes are, or recounting the times he's jerked himself off to the thought of Derek all over him, or the way his heart does that stupid, awful little flutter thing when…

He sits up, points accusingly.

“You had to _hear_ it, right? Or smell it? Come on, please tell me your creepy, invasive wolf senses were finally good for something. You had to feel the way my heartbeat would go all frazzly around Derek.”

Scott looks like he’s trying, he really does. He looks like all of his best friend instincts are aching to support Stiles in this.

“I mean… I don’t know, man. Sometimes you’d seem nervous? But like… he’s _Derek_ , and he goes around death glaring everyone all the time. Sometimes I get nervous around him too.”

Stiles flops back, reaching out again for the pillow. Scott crosses the room, lies down next to him.

“It was a fae, dude. Is it totally crazy to think she really messed with your head?”

“She was messing with _Derek_ ,” he grits back.

He believes that. He does.

.-

Seeing Stiles is torture now.

The boy doesn’t do a damn thing to help either, using every flimsy excuse to crowd too close into Derek's space, brushing elbows while they look over the same sheet of paper, flopping down next to him on the couch when the pack insists on a movie night. Derek flinches away without fail, and the pack is obviously starting to pick up on something. They’re all giving Derek half-wary looks these days, except, strangely, for Scott. Scott keeps leveling Stiles with pointed looks that speak of disappointment, which Stiles just as pointedly ignores.

Stiles is _watching_ him, too. Gaze following him every time he moves, an itching awareness under Derek’s skin. When Derek looks over he doesn’t find lust in Stiles’ eyes, doesn’t find any vague, vapid appearance of wanting. He looks like… Stiles. The way he always does when he’s trying to work through a mystery.

Sometimes he just looks sad, and that’s enough to have Derek fleeing the room altogether.

The sight of this hurting Stiles, it _breaks_ him because this… he’d _done_ this. This is a punishment for him, but Stiles is going to bear the brunt of it because once again, Derek had made the mistake of caring.

“He told me what happened,” Scott says, two weeks in. He’s hovering at the doorway, not meeting Derek’s eyes. “He thinks what he’s feeling is real.”

Derek nods, because he _knows_. If it wasn’t in Stiles’ eyes, it would be in the occasional, late night messages on Derek’s phone. The ones he should delete right away but he can’t help reading, rereading. The ones that say things like _I know what I’m feeling_ and _I need you to believe me_ and _I’m gonna make this right, Derek. I don’t know how yet but I will_.

The worst ones are the ones where Stiles falls into recounting warped memories like they’ll be enough to convince him. Like it doesn’t tear Derek apart to see the threads of their shared past get rewritten with things like _I missed you so much when you were gone, Derek. I thought about calling you a thousand times, even just to yell at you for leaving._

It’s not true. Just because Stiles remembers it, just because he believes it with every fiber in him, that doesn’t mean that it’s true.

Scott’s looking at Derek now, jaw set with resolve.

“I need to know you’re not gonna take advantage of this.”

Derek isn’t sure what happens to his face. It must be something close to indignance, because Scott lifts his chin, challenging.

“I know this only happened because you’re into Stiles, ok? And I know he’s pushing it sometimes, and that probably really sucks. But whatever happens, whatever he does, I need you to tell me you’re not going to touch him.”

It’s an easy enough thing in the moment to agree to that. To nod slowly, holding Scott’s gaze. To clear his throat, and say “He deserves better than me.”

Scott searches his face for a long moment, turns back toward the hall, pauses.

“He deserves what he _really_ wants. Whatever that is.”

Derek nods again. It’s the same thing, really.

.-

Stiles tries to picture a life where he’s not into Derek. Tries to trace his behavior down parallel paths, and comes up wanting.

There are charts back on his wall, post-its and index cards and a spool of blue thread to pinpoint the moments he _knows_ that he felt something.

_Door, pool, Jeep, van, snark, smile_

From the outside it looks like nothing. The outside doesn’t show the way Stiles’ chest had ached as he’d clutched Derek’s soaked shoulder on one horrible night in the loft, the way he’d wanted to cradle Derek against him, tell him what happened to Boyd wasn’t his fault. But he hadn’t done that, because there had been Jennifer Blake, and because they’d been _Stiles and Derek_ , and Stiles hadn’t ever been that brave, not with this.

The outside doesn’t show the way Stiles had jerked off frantically – stress relief, ok? – after Derek had almost died in front of him, bloody arm and black-bile vomit. Everything about that day had been a nightmare but those arching abs had been what had somehow fixed into his mind’s eye. The way Derek had _needed_ him. He’d felt guilty afterward, confused. Convinced himself it was just his own, predictably off-kilter reaction to all the stress of the day; that picturing Derek, sweaty and shirtless, jerking him off, was a safer escape than picturing Derek almost dying, picturing Scott almost being discovered by werewolf hunters, picturing almost having to _saw off someone’s arm_.

The outside doesn’t show the way Stiles’ heart had seized up at the sight of Derek unconscious in a hospital elevator, those few horrified heartbeats where Stiles had thought for sure he was dead.

Every moment Stiles has ever loved Derek has existed when he’s on his own or inside his own head.

He throws his index cards at the wall, and watches the blue thread flutter to the ground.

.-

Stiles’ breath smells of whiskey as he pushes his way inside the loft. It’s the first sign Derek should just leave, or shove him back out the door and make sure it’s locked this time.

The rough “I love you” he spits is the second, angry and desperate, and with no hint of the actual emotion in question.

“I fucking _love_ you, you absolute dick.”

Derek turns off the burner on the stove, absently glad he hadn’t made it past boiling water, and steps around the counter into the main room.

“What are you doing here, Stiles?”

Stiles smirks, a sharp bitter thing.

“What do you mean? I love you. You love me. That’s what people in love fucking _do_ , they spend time with each other.”

Derek braces himself to be approached, to push Stiles away, but the younger man makes his wavering way to the couch instead, collapses back in a sprawl that has his shirt riding up, has Derek looking away with a sharply caught breath.

“You’re drunk,” he tries, tone carefully even. Stiles snorts.

“Of course I’m drunk. I’m in love, and you love me, and you won’t come near me. I’m stuck in the worst fucking rom-com ever, because the only dramatic plot point going on is between you and your fucking martyr complex.” He laughs, sharp and ugly. “What the hell do I have to be not drunk about?”

“Stiles…”

“Are you _seriously_ telling me you’re that oblivious? That you thought, all this time, there was _nothing_?”

He’s still lying back on Derek’s couch, eyes half slitted as he stares out at Derek. Some of the anger’s gone now, replaced by that now familiar, puzzling look that’s as intently discerning drunk as it ever is sober.

Derek barely bites down on the “maybe” that wants to crawl up. The sparks of seconds where they held each others’ eyes and Derek let himself think just maybe, there was a possibility there.

Saying that won’t help anything.

“Scott tried to set me up with someone tonight.”

Derek flinches. Stiles’ lips twitch, a wan touch of a smile.

“See? You care.”

“Obviously I care,” Derek spits out, harsh. “That’s why this happened at all.”

Stiles seems almost pleased, though. His hand is tracing a lazy path along his bare strip of stomach. Derek’s eyes keep catching on it.

Sign number three. He should _leave_ , right now.

“Did you go?” he asks instead. His voice fails every attempt at casual, going thick and rough as Stiles’ fingers expose another inch of skin.

“Couldn’t stomach it,” Stiles admits. “Bailed out the second I realized what was going down.”

He shifts on the couch like he’s trying to get comfortable. Ends up with his legs splayed out a little too wide, and it’s a fucking _invitation_ for Derek to sink down between them, and he needs to look away, he needs to remember all the reasons why that would be unbelievably wrong.

“You don’t think that’s strange?” He barely notices himself trailing closer, his movements feeling too easy, like a taut thread’s between them, tugging Derek forward. “You’ve been on dates with other people before, even after you were supposedly ‘in love’ with me.”

“Before I knew you loved me back,” Stiles counters. His thumb’s flicking over the button of his jeans, making Derek’s body go hot and tense with every snap of nail against metal. “Coulda moved on if you didn’t want me too. I mean, I had to at least try.”

Derek’s almost to Stiles now, hovering a foot away, staring down at him. He feels halfway drunk, himself, on the scent of Stiles’ arousal.

“What you’re saying… that’s a fantasy.”

Stiles’ hand pauses against his belly. His eyes have gone sad again, bitter and soft and _wounded_.

“Why can’t you believe me?”

Derek doesn’t think he’s ever wanted to kiss someone so badly. His next breath drags out too fast.

“I should go.”

It takes a second for Derek to realize that had come from Stiles, not himself. Staring up at him, half-drunk, want still plain in his eyes.

“I should go,” Stiles says again. “’Cause my self-control’s shit when I’m _not_ five shots in. And I’m gonna kiss you soon, and you’ll somehow find a dozen ways to blame yourself for it.”

Derek lets out a rough breath, forces himself back a step. It feels wrong to move away, some primal part of him whining at the retreat because _Stiles loves him, Stiles wants him, Stiles is sad and needs Derek all over him, making it better_.

Primal parts don’t understand things like magic spells and incepted emotions.

“I’ll go out for a run. Don’t drive home until you’re sober.”

Stiles blinks up at him, big soft eyes. Smiles fondly.

“Look at you, looking out for me.  Why wouldn’t I love you?”

Derek runs for four hours. Comes home to the scent of whiskey and Stiles’ arousal and the memory of Stiles’ soft eyes. Collapses in bed, sweaty and half-spent, and jerks off to the fantasy of a world where this is real, where Derek is allowed to touch.


End file.
